Your
computer's video card will serve as the
interface between your CPU and the computer
monitor.
Faster video cards will utilize an AGP
(Accelerated Graphics Port) port on the
computer motherboard. The AGP slot allows a
faster transfer rate than the standard PCI
bus that your video card would normally use.
Most video graphics cards also have their
own video memory installed on the card,
which increases memory performance. This
will be expressed in MB (MegaBytes), such as
16 MB or 64 MB, etc.
The more inexpensive desktop computers
generally don't have separate video cards.
Instead, they will have an integrated
graphics chip that is designed directly into
the motherboard. The graphics chips that
come as part of a pre-built computer system
are never as powerful as separate video
cards, such as the GeForce series from
NVidia.
If you intend to play high-end computer
games, or if you need to use any software
programs that are very graphic-intensive,
you might want to consider investing in a
more powerful video card.
Recommendations: 4X AGP video graphics card
or higher with 64 MB Video RAM minimum.
Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP)
AGP is an interface developed by Intel which
allows a graphics card to directly access
memory.
This feature, along with wider bandwidth,
helps improve the graphics performance of
your computer and monitor.
For the most part, AGP has replaced older
PCI video cards due to superior performance.
Just about all modern motherboards have an
AGP slot built into them as a standard
feature, and other motherboards will have a
full AGP graphics card built-in.
You will see AGP cards advertised with
different specifications, but the main thing
to look at is throughput (bandwidth), here
is a summary of throughput speeds:
|
1X
- |
266 MBps |
|
2X
- |
533 MBps |
|
4X
- |
1.07 GBps |
|
8X
- |
2.14 GBps |
MBps is
MegaBits per second, GBps is GigaBits per
second.
Obviously, the higher the throughput, the
faster your video card will perform.
However, unless you are going to use your
computer for very powerful graphical
applications, a 2X AGP video card will be
more than adequate. |
